A new business not yet having any accounting system has a choice - from a cheap and simple Simplex D book up to popular PC accounting packages offering a universal solution, neither cheap nor simple. You will need their software just to read your accounts. Maybe you will engage Kittiwake to maintain your transaction records remotely, or maybe you have the time to do it yourself once the accounts are in place. Consider the benefits of using Microsoft Excel. You already have it on your PC as part of Office, it is free and extremely versatile but often maligned by those with a mission to sell you their software. Here we will show how Kittiwake uses an Excel spreadsheet to provide all bookkeeping and accounting functions from keyboard transaction entry through to final accounts, plus management tools, PAYE forms etc all in one Excel file. Moreover, it can be tailored to fit your business which has its own unique personality or “business model” so that you either give your customers credit or you don’t, you are VAT registered or not, you are incorporated as a Limited Company or not, you have your own unique set of different named accounts into which to post transactions for analysis, else you are given hundreds of numbered accounts or “codes”. You need just a few management reports rather than pay for unwanted report generators. All these variables can be customized to fit your business like a tailored suit and altered later. Very valuable reports are possible, in bar chart, graph or pie chart format. Traditionally the detailed income and expense items are posted by a bookkeeper into a double entry analysing cash book from which he must achieve a trial balance, whose totals are transferred to an accountant’s computer to produce the profit and loss account and balance sheet which in turn determine the tax payable The Kittiwake method makes it easier to do this, and automatically updates Trial Balance immediately , rejecting wrongly entered data.

1. The opening screen – MAIN tab The frontispiece to your business accounts

2. Company Data – tab COMPANY Brings together into one place all the ID data pertaining to your business

3. The Analytical Cash Book – PAY IN tab The example system has been set up to supply 5 clients on credit and this screen shows how much each of them owes you You are charging them VAT and keeping a running total of it. All receipts to the business are entered in this screen by a simple procedure started off by keying in the date then the customer’s name under Narrative. The cursor box is automatically moved to the next cell in the process. If a mistake is made, a red ALARM condition appears in the Total cell, as shown below

4. The Analytical Cash Book – PAY OUT tab You are paying for your purchases and expense items as soon as you take them, and paying input VAT for which you are keeping a running total. You are distributing costs into separate named accounts for analysis All costs to the business are entered in this screen by a simple procedure started by keying in the date and supplier’s name under Narrative. The cursor box moves to the next cell automatically. If a mistake is made a red ALARM condition would appear at Total but in this example no error has occurred.

5. Bank Account and Petty Cash - BANK tab Your manually inputted outgoing payments are posted automatically into the bank as DR items, and your receipts as CR items, Your petty cash account is automatically maintained by posting a payment of cash from the Bank and showing cash spent

6. Trial Balance – TRIAL tab The totals from the accounts listed are automatically posted as DR or CR, then the DR and CR totals are compared with each other and must be equal. A Trial Balance operation is performed every time an item is posted to any account, and in case of error an alarm cell is activated. The accounts listed are the ones chosen for inclusion to suit your business. The list can be altered later

7. Profit and Loss Account – P & L tab This screen evaluates the classic accounting equation where total costs are compared to total sales to establish profit or loss

8. Balance Sheet – BALSHEET tab This screen sets out the assets and liabilities of the business and establishessolvency or insolvency of the business

9. VAT Return - VAT tab This screen mimics the layout of HMRC VAT Return form VAT 100

10. Corporation Tax & Capital Allowances – tab This screen shows the computation of Corporation tax for a LimitedCompany based on profit and the statutory rates for the current year

11. Employer’s PAYE Record Sheet - tab P11 This screen is functionally identical to HMRC Form P11 and must record all pay and expenses for a named employee for one tax year

12. Payroll – Payslip Required by law to be given to every person on the payroll on their pay day. All statutory information is provided

13. Client Comparison This screen examines the sales income from each client and the expense incurred in achieving it, i.e profitability . This report could be displayed as a table, pie chart or graph

14. Client Profitability Analysis

15. Sales Analysis This screen shows graphically the breakdown of total sales into the individual sales to each client. The data for presentation may be switched to show cost of sales, and for any week of the current year

16. Fixed Asset Register

17. Access Order Management Database A utility program may be included to generate sales invoices and maintain an invoice list.

18. New Order Form This form creates an itemised sales invoice to a client in the client list for the supply of goods/services in the products list. Provision is made for surcharge or discount to be imposed

19. Order List As each sales invoice is raised its principal data is added to the list of invoices

20. View Order This form displays the content of any itemised sales invoice, also indicating if paid by using a link to the PAY IN records. VAT is shown if appropriate

21. Invoice This form is the itemised invoice as printed on plain paper

22. New Product Add a new product to the Product list shown below

23. Product List

24. New Client Add a new client, with all his particulars, to the Client List below

25. Clients List